“Preventative medicine -- for the apocalypse?”. In a world in which magic and science coexist, the only way to prevent the planet’s destruction is by following the instructions of the doctor… of Witch Doctor. But who is this man and why has he been chosen to cure Earth? Doctor Vincent Morrow is a Sorcerer General, someone who combines the best of two worlds, the cold rationality of science with the uncanny spells of magic. In the best tradition of characters such us Doctor Strange (Marvel Comics Sorcerer Supreme who studied medicine before learning the mystic arts), Doc Macabre (IDW’s specialist in the arcane) or even Doctor House (the best analytic mind and an incomparable talent for figuring out a patient’s personality as well as their illnesses), Vincent Morrow is a man fighting against demons, vampires or monsters, using his intellect and his ability to solve impossible medical mysteries.Writer Brandon Seifert decided to “show you the monsters you’re familiar with in ways you’ve never seen– by grafting the weirdest stuff in the natural world to them”. Inspired by the most peculiar aspects of biology, Brandon does an extraordinary creative exercise, treating monsters as real living organisms; and combining all that with Vincent Morrow’s ability to get rid of any nasty diseases. Every supernatural threat out there is considered a disease, that can be affected by the Earth’s immune systems (sunlight will turn a vampire into ashes, trolls will turn to stone, gargoyles into dust, and so on), but sometimes a medical intervention is necessary, and that’s when Witch Doctor comes in: to destroy the supernatural menaces that nobody else could defeat.In Witch Doctor # 0 (published as a backup feature in The Walking Dead # 85 in May 2011), we see Doctor Vincent Morrow callously experimenting on a parasitoid vampire, much to the chagrin of his helper, the paramedic Gast. What kind of substances could we find in a vampire’s fang? Brandon has the answer: “vasodilator, anticoagulant, and an anesthetic”. All of these elements would be necessary for a vampire to immobilize his prey and suck their blood. All the scientific explanations are skillfully balanced with black humor… so when Gast complains about the doctor’s heartless methods he gets accused of being a post-mortem rights activist. In the four issue miniseries Witch Doctor fights against demonic possession, fairies hatching their eggs and creatures of the Black Lagoon. We’ve all seen films like “The Exorcist”, but when Vincent Morrow is dealing with possession he has a rather medical approach to it. For him, a demonic possession is akin to an infection, and he has more than one way to fix that, even when he finds a case of super-parasitism “one host, more than one parasite”.

Lukas Ketner

For all intents and purposes, this is our world, except that every monster and demonic creature exist here. But there is something else, there are creatures of indecipherable nature that not even the doctor can fully comprehend, such is the case of Penny Dreadful, the girl / entity that works for the doctor as his anesthesiologist. Two minds coexist within her, one comes from the netherworld and one has still some traces of human rationality. In order for her to survive she must feed on all the mythical creatures that the doctor sees on a daily basis. The origin of all this supernatural evil is partly based on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos; Brandon states that millions of years ago gigantic alien creatures known as the Archaeons landed on our planet, their sole presence was enough to cause a cataclysm that meant the extinction of the dinosaurs, and for millions of years these Archaeons have been hibernating, although just like with any living creature, the microscopic organisms that resided in them had enough biological independency to keep on living. And all supernatural beings are somehow linked to these primordial extraterrestrial bacteria. There are some who think the Archaeons might awaken in our era, and that would certainly mean the end of the world. I found especially fascinating how Brandon affirms certain theories about the Archaeons and the fact that they are much more powerful than gods: “gods metabolize worship, awe, fear”, and if you think about it, it’s true. Every religion consists necessarily on at least one -if not all- of these sine qua non conditions: you worship a god, or you admire a god or you fear a god. Gods need that, they need human souls and worshipping to exist. The Archaeons are so powerful that they need none of that.

Issues # 0, 1 and 2 are great self-conclusive stories that tell us everything we need to know about this world while making us feel intrigued and seduced by the characters. Issues # 3 and 4 are a 2-part story that delves into the fish people (creatures that resemble the classical monster from the Black Lagoon), here we learn more about the Archaeons and Vincent Morrow’s destiny. After the miniseries, there was a one-shot titled “Resuscitation” which starts by mimicking a very well-known urban legend: a man wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice and he has in incision… he’s probably missing a kidney. Except, in this case, we see a man that has had one kidney replaced by a mummified kidney extracted from an old Egyptian deity that has been embalmed for centuries.

Parasitoid vampire / vampiro parasitoide

Brandon is a great writer with a lot of imagination. He has truly created an entire world, and that’s no easy task. Better yet, he has created a very fascinating universe and he has reconciled magic with science. And that’s what I said in the letter that was published in the Resuscitation one-shot: “I’m fascinated by a whacky world in which science and magic can coexist, in which eerie creatures and sinister doctors can quarrel in the most unexpected ways”.

Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner work so good together that at moments it is evident they are close friends. Obviously they share the same interests and passions. Personally, I can’t possibly imagine another artist in charge of Witch Doctor. Lukas Ketner is also new in the business, but he has more talent than a lot of pencilers working for the big two. For starters, he has done something that isn’t always easy for an artist: he has exceled doing both, interior art and covers. Some artists are great doing covers but not so good on interior art, and vice versa. Lukas, however, does a superb job in every of the six covers of Witch Doctor. We have to admire the creepy expression of Witch Doctor on issue # 0 and the riveting designs of his medical artifacts, instead of a stethoscope he has a mystic eye and instead of a regular injection he has a golden needle with jewels in the shape of a skull. There is so much thought and beauty in Lukas designs, he manages to give weight to elements that, due to their fantastic nature, would probably float away. In his hands, the sword Excalibur is real, and even an umbrella made of angels and devils desiccated flesh is real too.

Demonic possession / posesión demoníaca

In the four covers of the miniseries Lukas plays with white backgrounds to enhance the impact of what we see in the foreground. In the first cover we have the contorted body of a boy possessed by a demon and the doctor trying to figure out what’s going on. This is a cover so strong that you would buy the book based solely on that image. And that’s what covers should accomplish, and that’s what many artists forget nowadays. The second cover is so beautifully inked that it could work perfectly as a black and white illustration; surely Lukas Ketner has been influenced by masters such as Bernie Wrightson and other legendary creators. In the third cover we see the doctor performing an autopsy, I absolutely love the way Lukas pays homage to the Creature of the Black Lagoon (plus, the gooey consistency of what the doctor is holding in his hands is awesome). In the fourth cover, we see the doctor holding Excalibur and a group of silhouettes that force us to imagine what kind of monstrosities he has to fight against. Finally, the Resuscitation one-shot is really amazing. The human skeleton and all his inner organs and veins are exposed, we can see what’s inside of us and that is always very discomforting (unless, of course, you’re in med school), the bandages in the corners are also a very nice touch.There’s so much thought put into every drawing Lukas does. I know this project was years in the making, and that really shows. No detail has been overseen, no design is simplistic. I’ve heard other authors talking about their projects using the expression “years in the making” and after reading those comics I feel like they’ve been wasting their time, because for some people “years in the making” means not paying attention to an idea for a long time. For Brandon and Lukas it’s the opposite, it’s an example of how one can develop an idea over a long period of time. And the result, like a good wine, had to go through a maturing process before being released. This month a new miniseries of Witch Doctor begins. Will it be just as great as the previous issues? Hell yeah!____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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About the Author - Arion

Arion, who is either from Chile or New York (it’s not really clear) writes a blog that the Outhouse steals on a regular basis. Arion is by far the nicest of all the staff writers and the most well behaved only having been banned from one country. One thing we really appreciate about Aroin is that he writes his reviews in English and Spanish and we hope someday he’ll translate this blurb for us. We’re not so good at languages, just look at how well we write in English if you need proof. You should bookmark Arion’s blog - http://artbyarion.blogspot.com – and actually look at it. There will be a quiz at the end of every month.